7 Best Affiliate Programs for New Bloggers

If you’re a new blogger and don’t know where to begin with affiliate marketing, then you’ve come to the right place. I first heard about affiliate marketing a few years ago – way before I even started my blog. I read up on it, thought it was an interesting way to make money, but I didn’t know where to begin.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is very simple. You promote a product to your readers and if they decide to make a purchase, you get a commission.

Some affiliate programs require you to have a certain number of readers per month. It can be quite challenging when you’re a new blogger. But there are ways to get accepted even if you’re just starting out.

PIN ME FOR LATER!

The Best Affiliate Programs for Beginners

This was the very first program that I applied to because it is easy and pretty much everybody knows what Amazon is. It doesn’t matter what niche you’re in, there is always something on Amazon that you can promote.

It is fairly easy to get accepted into the Amazon Associate Program, but you have to make 3 sales within 6 months or they will cancel your account. You can always apply again and the approval process is the same. You are NOT allowed to click on your own link to buy the products. If you do, you won’t get credit for it.

ShareASale is an Affiliate Marketing Network – which means when you join, you join their whole entire program. Search for products that are a good fit for your audience. Some of the programs I have signed up for through ShareASale are StudioPress, NameCheap, Grammarly, etc. These are all products that I have used or currently using.

This blog is hosted using SiteGround and I just cannot recommend it enough. It is so much faster than Bluehost. The customer service is top notch. It is extremely easy to apply to their affiliate program. They even provide banners with multiple images and sizes for you to use.

Once you’re accepted, they will provide you with a code to paste into your site. VigLink will automatically scan your site for common product terms and add an affiliate link. How cool is that? It takes your unaffiliated merchant links and turns them into affiliated links!

Tailwind is a Pinterest scheduling tool – and there are two ways to go about this:

Tailwind credits: if you use Tailwind, that means you already have the referral link in your dashboard. Every time someone clicks on your link to make a purchase, they will get 1 free month and you will also get 1 free month.

Cash: if you’d get compensated with cash, then you need to join an affiliate marketing network such as ShareASale. You earn 15% commission every time someone makes a purchase using your link.

I applied for Media.net when I had zero traffic and got accepted right away. In addition to being an ad network, it is also an affiliated program. You can use both Media.net and Google Adsense ad networks together.

Once you get accepted into their Ambassador program, you will receive 10% of the revenue generated by each of your referrals for the first 12 months. Your referred publisher also gets an additional 10% of the revenue they generate the first 3 months. I call it a win-win.

Ebates is where you get cash back for shopping at more than 2,000 stores that you’d normally shop at anyway. If I want to buy a skirt from Macy’s, instead of going to Macy’s website directly – I’d go to Ebates and type in Macy’s to buy the skirt (It’s currently 6% cash back).

Ebates is one of the best affiliate programs in my opinion because it doesn’t cost you or your readers anything. You get $25 after they make their first $25 worth of purchases. They also get $10 for spending that first $25.

This works both online and in-store (not all stores). I just link my credit card to it and when I go shopping, I just use my credit card as normal. The store doesn’t have to scan anything for me to get credit. How awesome is that?

FINAL NOTES

Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways many bloggers make money blogging. But it can be overwhelming starting out – not knowing where to begin, what programs to apply. I hope this list has helped you and let me know what if you’ve tried any of them.

Categories

FundKey Life is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.